[hab]

I love my new iPhone 3GS but am a bit disappointed in the speed of the 3G network. In trying to figure out whether it is merely unreasonable expectations on my part, I tried the speedtest at
<http://i.dslr.net/iphone_speedtest.html>
and got a result of 54kbps here in cell phone heaven in downtown San Francisco even though the signal strength from AT&T 3G is 5 bars. Is this speed to be expected or did I just get a slow phone? What are others experiences?

[ghporter]

Signal strength and available bandwidth are very much separate things. Go somewhere away from the downtown area that still has 5 bars and do your speed test again. Try to rule out things like interference from signals being reflected off of tall buildings, many other 3G users and so on, and then judge your phone's speed.

You should also try your phone out in a Starbucks, which offers free AT&T WiFi-I'll bet you have a pretty snappy phone there.

[Eriamjh]

I just ran it and I got 1106kbps wf-fi. I got 697kbps via 3G on my 3GS.

[mduell]

No, but your cellular carrier is.

[hab]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

Signal strength and available bandwidth are very much separate things.

You are so correct. At home now but with only 2 bars signal strength I get a speed test result of between 250 and 300 kbps or 5x my previous result. So my limitation in the downtown area was likely driven by bandwidth. Thanks for the perspective !!!

[gradient]

This is definitely an issue with your cell provider, not the phone, I would think. Where I am, my 3G bandwidth varies greatly depending on where in the city I am. I'll get anything from 75kb/s to 1.9mb/s, though luckily it's typically in the 1mb/s or greater range.